undergone many radical changes within the past few years. The method o f self-determination has been substituted for the old and outmoded method prescribed by Solomon. The modern theory is that a child should not be restricted or restrained, but must be allowed to do his own choosing. Corporal punishment has been ruled out likewise and is looked upon as a relic o f the dark ages. God said, “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov. 19:18). The chastening of children on the part of their parents must be the correct method of dealing with them since it is the method pursued by our Heav enly Father for the well-being of His children. “ . . . My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye en dure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Heb. 12:5-8). The apostle Paul wrote, “ Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first command ment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Eph. 6 :l-3 ) . To deprive children o f that discipline which will bring them to the place of obedience is to do them irreparable harm for time and eternity. Some one has well said, “ If more o f our boys wore stripes while children, fewer of them would be wearing stripes after they got to be men.” All o f us as parents need to give heed to PARENTAL DEMEANOR Paul’s injunction to Timothy in I Tim. 4:12 applies just as much to parents as it did to the young preacher of the Gospel. Paul wrote, “But be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in pur ity.” We must never get away from the fact that our children will talk as we talk, they will walk where we walk, and they will act as we do. “Mom and Dad did it” is an excuse often upon the lips of children, and if not expressed audibly, it re mains in their thoughts. In dealing with the home, Billy Sunday said, “How can children be taught to lisp, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ when mother has her knees under the bridge table?” Knowing the power of example, our Saviour said to His disciples, “ For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you”
(John 13:15). By washing the feet of His disci ples, the Lord Jesus was showing them how they should be willing to humble themselves and to take the place o f servants. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him” (John 13:16). Tobacco-using and liquor-guzzling parents some day will wake up to the fact that their children are doing the same thing and their hearts will be heavy. Then it will be too late. The probability is the children will not show the moderation exer cised by the parents but will cast off all restraints to their own moral and spiritual undoing. Lastly, I wish to have each one regard with utmost concern PARENTAL DEVOTION God calls upon every parent to provide a home for his child. The Scriptures say, “ for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children” (II Cor. 12:14). Just as the risen Saviour has gone to prepare a home for His chil dren, so all o f us should seek to provide the right kind of a home for ours. Consider the unconscious influences at work either for or against the home. A little Scripture motto which hung on the wall of the kitchen in my boyhood home made a profound impression up on me. It was a simple sentence ornamented with little blue forget-me-not flowers and framed in gold. Taken from John’s epistle, it stated: “God is love.” If, as a child, I repeated that text once, it must have been hundreds and hundreds of times. A wise and godly mother placed it there not merely as a decoration on the wall, but as a testimony for the spirtitual well-being of her brood. What about the guests who come into our homes? What kind of music are the children com pelled to hear? Someone said to a statesman, “You write the laws of a nation, but let me write its songs.” He knew the powerful effect the songs we sing have upon us and especially upon our chil dren. Much of the music coming over the air is worse than trash and it pollutes the sanctity o f the home. Do we come home after work with a newspaper and half-a-dozen cans o f beer and then wonder why our children are not interested in the things that matter for time and eternity? “We lost our first child,” said a man in the course of conversation with a friend. Shocked, the other cried out, “ I didn’t know that she was dead!” “Oh, she isn’t dead,” was the quiet response, to which he added sadly, “ I was too busy.”
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DECEMBER, 1966
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